Rage Against The (Goldman Sachs) Machine

[Uncle Festivus]

Bulls On Parade

A bit of light reading on the damage high speed computer (algorithmic) trading systems are doing to the average trader/investor, in light of the Goldman Sachs code theft case - it's not a level playing feild after all c:

This paper will explain how these traders – namely liquidity rebate traders, predatory algorithmic traders, automated market makers, and program traders – are exploiting the new market dynamics and negatively affecting real investors.

Full text here

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may lose its investment in a proprietary trading code and millions of dollars from increased competition if software allegedly stolen by a former employee gets into the wrong hands, a prosecutor said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3HBMf4CN6ok

 

[Aussiest]

So, does that man G/Sachs was using the software in "unfair ways"

Edit: don't take me seriously, i'm being a little ironic here:

 

[Uncle Festivus]

So, does that man G/Sachs was using the software in "unfair ways"

Edit: don't take me seriously, i'm being a little ironic here:

Yes, it's a bit like "I'm allowed to have a nuclear bomb coz I will use it responsibly" but you can't

 

[wayneL]

Yes, it's a bit like "I'm allowed to have a nuclear bomb coz I will use it responsibly" but you can't

Indeed.

It's been an open secret that the market has been manipulated.

>>>>Because I can't embed the video here<<<<

 

[dhukka]

Bulls On Parade

A bit of light reading on the damage high speed computer (algorithmic) trading systems are doing to the average trader/investor, in light of the Goldman Sachs code theft case - it's not a level playing feild after all c:

Full text here

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3HBMf4CN6ok

I have a correction to the title of your post Uncle, it should read;

Rage Against The (Government Sachs) Machine

 

[Gordon Gekko]

I ask myself why they have made this information public? Why now? Black mail?
No that seems too easy and they could always just kill whoever was involved.
They must be telegraphing something for use at another date?
Like in a month when some big move happens they could say hey that was that crazy program we better give the fed all control over markets so no one (else) can manipulate the market.


G

 

[Ato]

They must be telegraphing something for use at another date?
Like in a month when some big move happens they could say hey that was that crazy program we better give the fed all control over markets so no one (else) can manipulate the market.

This imho. And it's one hell of a scary pronouncement. The journey to the dark side will be complete.

 

[Timmy]

Full text here

The way I read it the "damage" is being done by those offering 'liquidity rebates'. The firms that develop algorithms to generate revenue from the rebates are responding to an incentive, and who can be blamed for that, its what makes our capitalist world go round?

ps. the same report was posted by MRC&Co over here.

 

[doctorj]

A good summary of it all attached.

The plot seems to be thickening and there are Russians behind it... Stay tuned.

 

[startrader]

A very long article about Goldman Sachs but a must-read in my opinion. Tells you what they have been up to for the last 90 years and it's shocking. The American people really need to become aware of what's going on and revolt!

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/07.09/bubble.html

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Well I guess that's how money shuffling becomes self fulfilling? Start using government money to squeeze the shorts, then let the algo comps get to work. Come the time to post the qtr results, presto, record profits. And now, right on Q, another nice rally, based on 2 banks better than expected profits due to the market going up! Step 3 - got to step 1 and repeat?

Now of course it would be different if their profits came from building some new factories and making things but that would require getting away from the office, out into the real world maybe.

Still, their downfall is that they are becoming very predictable, and the competitive advantage of technology and Fed backing will eventually fail.

The groundswell of public opinion against the GS machine, and the Fed, is gaining traction, as well as powerful support from politicians and current & former law & regulatory enforcers.

 

[Agentm]

i posted this on another thread yesterday

brilliant comments from tiabbi

from the age

Goldman Sachs' earnings a warning flare
Andrew Clark
July 16, 2009

HERE'S proof, as if we needed it, that Wall Street inhabits a parallel universe. While the US jobless rate creeps towards double digits and businesses across the heartland struggle to stay afloat, Goldman Sachs tots up a quarterly profit of $US3.44 billion ($A4.42 billion).

The Goldman money-making machine is running at $US38 million a day, or $US1.58 million an hour. For each second it takes to read this, Goldman will make another $US439.

How do they do it? They're not really telling us. Almost all the bank's earnings come from trading. But Goldman explains away $US10.78 billion of revenue from its trading and principal investments operation in just four vaguely worded paragraphs of a press release.

On a conference call, chief financial officer David Viniar waffled on about a "terrific client franchise" and a "very strong culture of risk management". What this amounts to is that Goldman is fast, ruthless, opportunistic and canny in its multibillion-dollar bets on the direction of financial markets.

Awash with dollar bills just weeks after repaying $US10 billion in government aid, Goldman is taking heat as never before.

In a lengthy piece for Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Matt Taibbi characterised the company as "the great American bubble machine", offering a roll-call of Goldman alumni in powerful government positions and blaming the bank for every financial bubble since the Great Depression.

"The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," writes Taibbi.

The New York Times has joined in, in more restrained fashion, reporting that Goldman's traders were known in the Big Apple as the Bandits of Broad Street and quoting an unnamed executive at a rival bank who compared Goldman staff to bellicose "orcs" in The Lord of the Rings.

Gazillions of dollars in profits don't look good when employment is evaporating from the US economy at a rate of more than 400,000 jobs a month. But in the eyes of many critics, the most objectionable aspect of Goldman's success is that the bank's earnings are shared

by such a small number of already ultra-wealthy people. Goldman distributes 49 per cent of its profit to employees, who may get an average pay packet of as much as $US900,000 this year.

Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer hit the nail on the head during a Bloomberg television interview following the profit announcement. While observing that Goldman made a "bloody fortune", he said the immediate issue was not the rights or wrongs of making a profit ”” but the question of where the proceeds were going.

"It's obviously better that banks be making money than losing it," he said. "The question is, does that generate jobs ”” which is the word we haven't heard anything about ”” out in the real economy."

After an infusion of billions of taxpayer dollars to keep Wall Street banks afloat, Spitzer asks whether any significant portion of Goldman's capital will go into sustainable employment, such as biotech or new energy: "Their job, from a macro-economic perspective, should be to raise capital and put it into those sectors that will create jobs. If they're not getting that done, then why are we supporting them in the way we have?"

While you may be loathe to listen to propriety lessons from one with as colourful a recent past as Spitzer, he has a point. Goldman's earnings are a warning flare. After the cataclysmic events of the past 18 months, are we simply going to allow bankers to go back to enriching themselves through an elaborate, opaque form of casino trading that is semi-detached from the rest of society?

Andrew Clark is The Guardian's Wall Street correspondent.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

In what some on Wall Street are calling the biggest blockbuster deal in the history of the financial sector, Goldman Sachs confirmed today that it was in talks to acquire the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

According to Goldman spokesperson Jonathan Hestron, the merger between Goldman and the Treasury Department is "a good fit" because "they're in the business of printing money and so are we."

The Goldman spokesman said that the merger would create efficiencies for both entities: "We already have so many employees and so much money flowing back and forth, this would just streamline things."

Mr. Hestron said the only challenge facing Goldman in completing the merger "is trying to figure out which parts of the Treasury Dept. we don't already own."

Goldman recently celebrated record earnings by roasting a suckling pig over a bonfire of hundred-dollar bills.

 

[GumbyLearner]

In what some on Wall Street are calling the biggest blockbuster deal in the history of the financial sector, Goldman Sachs confirmed today that it was in talks to acquire the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

According to Goldman spokesperson Jonathan Hestron, the merger between Goldman and the Treasury Department is "a good fit" because "they're in the business of printing money and so are we."

The Goldman spokesman said that the merger would create efficiencies for both entities: "We already have so many employees and so much money flowing back and forth, this would just streamline things."

Mr. Hestron said the only challenge facing Goldman in completing the merger "is trying to figure out which parts of the Treasury Dept. we don't already own."

Goldman recently celebrated record earnings by roasting a suckling pig over a bonfire of hundred-dollar bills.

Yes any view of the crap being spewed out by Goldman at present does indeed need a grain of salt. Goldman Sucks post a multi-billion dollar quarterly profit on the back of US taxpayers. Maybe EPO should be banned in banking sector like it is in cycling.

Anyway here's a interesting story about the imminent collapse of CIT. It's roughly 1/8 the size of Lehmann Brothels and everyone here knows what happened when it collapsed. :flush: Maybe they have a half-flush water saver installed this time.

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1331610.html
CIT collapse could ripple through retail industry
By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
The Associated Press

The possible collapse of a key lender is sending panic through the retail industry, threatening to hang up deliveries of back-to-school clothing and other merchandise and throw holiday ordering into disarray.

A bankruptcy filing by CIT Group would hurl more trouble at an industry already hammered by the worst spending slump in decades.

There’s still hope that CIT Group could avoid bankruptcy, and on Friday the commercial lender held talks on securing short-term financing with several large banks, possibly including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Another possibility is a quick trip through Chapter 11, with financing from the big banks to help it emerge quickly.

But there’s also no guarantee an agreement will be reached that could save the ailing company, which teeters on the brink after rescue talks with regulators broke off late Wednesday after days of round-the-clock negotiations.

 

[GumbyLearner]

Maybe Machines Against the Rage could also apply.

 

[The Edge]

Quote from startrader:

> A very long article about Goldman Sachs but a must-read in my opinion.
> Tells you what they have been up to for the last 90 years and it's
> shocking. The American people really need to become aware of what's
> going on and revolt!

Goldman Scahs, New World Order, Bildererg Group, a socialist web spun for over
150 years that firmlly took root in America once the moneychangers
were able to pass the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, on 23 December, two
days before Christmas when it was know that the opposition senators were
on holiday, and against long-standing tradition to never pass any bills,, let
alone one that turned over the nation's currency to a private corporation,
during the post-Thanksgiving into the New Year holdidays.
[In those days, time was needed for travel as senators went to their homes,
all over the country, unlike today's easier travel times.]

This is how the moneychangers have always worked. "Give me control of a
nation's money supply, and I care not who makes the rules." Rothschild
He spoke from experience after funding many European wars.

FWIW, the English House of Rothschild financed the North, and the French
House of Rothschild financed the South in the US civil war. The war was all
about money, not about slavery. The slavery issue become window dressing.
[Always, always follow the money!!!] Lincoln was shot because he refused
Rothschild's demand that money be borrowed from him, and Lincoln chose to
issue US Dollars, at no interest, instead. As an aside, prior to JFK being shot
in 1963, he had legislation pending to issue billions in US silver-backed $1.
One of the very first acts of then presiden Johnson was to kill the Kennedy bill.
There are no accidents.

The American people have been so dumbed down in the government-mandated
public education system over the last 50 years that they have no clue what
has happened to the Republic, now devolved into a "democracy," [the worst
known form of gov't] guided by NWO, nor do Americans have any clue
about the present tense.

As one who is a declared beligerent against the federal government, in my
ongoing attempts to shed light on the deceit and fraud of the corporate
federal UNITED STATES that has supplanted the sovereign united States,
people refuse to believe the truth. Cognitive dissonance, by gov't design,
has won. I am viewed as a fringe individual by many, but appreciated by a few
who have a clue, but also have no clue what to do.

The great Amereica died decades ago, literally, and the illusion that the world sees
is the final stages of decline.

Another one bites the dust.

GS is just the tip of the ice berg. A one world government is getting closer and closer.
No country will escape the parasite consuming the host(s).

No cheers from here.

 

[dhukka]

Max Keiser tells it like it is with respect to Goldman Sachs


Part 1



Part 2

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Follow the money, then prepare to go short? Or have they already?

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its forecast for the Standard & Poor 500 Index, saying improving earnings will spur the steepest second-half rally since 1982. The benchmark index for U.S. stocks will advance 15 percent from its June 30 level to 1,060 on Dec. 31, an increase from David Kostin’s prior projection of 940. The chief U.S. investment strategist at New York-based Goldman Sachs also lifted his 2009 and 2010 earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies to $52 and $75 a share, which are 30 percent and 19 percent higher than prior estimates.

It's good to see that earnings are so good

Thanks mainly to last week's strong results from banks, second-quarter projections had improved slightly by the end of last week, with earnings expected to decline 35.2 percent from a year ago compared with a forecasted decline of 35.7 percent in the previous week.

Only down 35.7% yoy - let's party :alcohol:

 

[Frank D]

S&P Monthly (Cash)

That's been my view for the 3rd Quarter lead by Financials

3rd Quarter UP move towards 1037 (max move 1102)

This UP move is simply a technical play in the Primary Trend.

Once it gets to those highs, I'd be moving into cash positions and wait until 2010.

Australian Market equivalent is 4400, with a max move around 4590.

3rd Quarter target is 4400, with maybe a slight rise in the 4th Quarter, but
once 4400 hits I'd be moving any BUY positions on stocks to the exit
gate and wait until the first Quarter 2010.

 

[Naked shorts]

Threads like these are great. They bring all the idiots of the forum together in one spot, which allows me to quickly add them to my ignore list so I don't waste time listening to what they have to say in other threads.

Good day